INTERNATIONALES THEATERINSTITUT / MIME CENTRUM BERLIN

MEDIATHEK

FÜR TANZ

UND THEATER

MCB-TV-6045

Maršo Vorijla / You can't just hand out foregiveness

Maršo Vorijla - Maršo Vorijla! - Come in, in freedom! Del maršal chujla. - May God preserve your freedom. - Apparently, Chechens do not wish each other good day or peace as a greeting, but freedom.

"...For most people, Chechnya is a mystery. I was once walking in the Jardin du Luxembourg. I was stopped by a boy. He asked me where I was from. When I replied 'Chechnya', he looked very surprised. 'But you don't look like an Arab!' Then I realised that for most people in the West we belong to that enemy organisation called 'The Middle East'. I say without hate or contempt. Chechnya isn't Palestine, Afghanistan or Iraq. It is a country on the borders of Europe, and what is happening there is not comparable with the great problems of the Arab-Muslim world. The Chechen drama is based on Russian imperial despotism and post-Soviet evolution, just as in Ukraine or Belarus, but with infinitely greater violence. If the suffering of our people is to be compared with anything, compare it with Bosnia, the victims of post-Communism marked by exaggerated nationalism. With the difference that Putin is more powerful than Milosevich and that NATO will not come and helfp us," wrote Milana Terloeva.